The Matrioska Dilemma

52 TUESDAYS (Australia), running in Berlinale Generation, opens with a medium shot of Billie, a 16-year old Australian girl, shooting the gender transition of her mother and also her own internal process, where sexual experimentation and a strange three-way relationship with friends gives way to a path to independence and maturity. There is dexterity and intention in her video, something deeply personal and almost dangerous for a girl her age, but done with courage and determination. The film is both a testimonial art project and a coming of age experience.

Ironically, the limits of 52 TUESDAYS are exactly the opposite of the experimental film made by its protagonist. We don’t see the whole final result; we catch a glimpses of Billie’s project. This very personal style of filmmaking, obviously a merit of Hyde's, is completely drowned in the context of a light comedy, a film about the 52 week period in which Billie’s mother becomes a man. Not to say that everything is a complete comedic meltdown: the intentions of the film-inside-the-film work perfectly, and even the transitions from day to day shows us snapshots of different world events (reminiscent of Godard’s late video essays) in a recount of the 52 Tuesdays the mother and daughter spend together.

There is some diligence in Hyde’s treatment of such a controversial topic, but you can only sugar coat something so far before it's over sweet, and difficult to swallow. The film crosses the line between a sort of experimental intellectual comedy-drama (Miranda July comes to mind) and just a halfhearted film that lacks ambition. With such a delicate topic, you either show all your cards or none.

Maybe Hyde should have re-examined her thinking in the experimental film-inside-the-film to find a more unique angle. Until then, crowd-pleaser comedies will come and go, and so too will this film.